EA: Acquisition of a Triple Quadrupole ICP-MS at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Syracuse University

A triple quadrupole ICP-MS will be installed to support research, teaching, and outreach activities at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University. This instrument will have a wide range of users with diverse backgrounds, including those in hydrogeology, paleoenvironmental studies, and solid earth processes. The acquisition of this new instrument will benefit all levels of education at multiple institutions, as well as provide opportunities for public outreach. Student-led undergraduate research using this instrument through several undergraduate STEM-focused training programs at Syracuse University will be promoted. Use of this instrument will highlight this instrument as an example of state-of-the-art analytical work in Earth Sciences when interacting with underrepresented groups. Syracuse K-12 students will have opportunities to tour the ICP-MS laboratory. The instrument capabilities will be showcased through videos broadly disseminated. The ICP-MS instrument measures carbonate iodine to calcium ratios for investigating changes in ocean oxygen patterns through geologic history. These changes recorded in global oceans reflect important environmental changes in the atmosphere, on land and during the evolution of life. Data generated from analyzing samples with this instrument will be compared to Earth system model results and will help constraint future models. The PIs will further develop halogens as hydrogeochemical tracers for both groundwater and surface water applications. The partitioning of iodine between environmentally important minerals (e.g. carbonate and apatite) and aqueous solutions will also be examined. This ICP-MS will be integrated into all levels of established curriculum, which will reach students from lower and upper division undergraduates to graduate students both in person and online. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.